How do American Indian reservations work in regards to political office? Can someone born on them run for state office or president?

13 comments

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2. They’re sovereign nations that are considered a part of the US. So yeah.

3. Native Americans are still natural born American citizens, so yes, they can run for president. I’m pretty sure they can also run for state office as well, even if the reservation technically is sovereign.

4. They don’t work any differently than the rest of the country. Any person born there is a natural-born citizen of the US.

   President (and by extension, Vice President) is to my knowledge the only office in the country which requires natural-born citizenship.

5. Someone born on a reservation has all the same sovereign rights as any other citizen. They can run for whatever public office they qualify for based on the residency rules.

6. I believe we have 10ish Native Americans in Congress right now as well as a few governors

7. Yes we can!

8. Yes, they certainly can. There are no restrictions whatsoever. Why would there be?

9. People born on Indian reservations are American citizens. No restrictions.

10. Tribal nations are considered domestic dependent sovereign entities. They are sort of adjacent to state entities, where they are considered within the legal jurisdiction of federal entities, but not states. There is weirdness because a person born on a reservation in a federally recognized tribe is also a citizen of the state the rez is in, and it gets more complicated because some reservations span multiple states. Additionally, as if this were not enough, state laws may or may not apply to a tribe enrolled indian while they are off reservation. The legal status of it all is pretty ambiguous at times and many treaties are not actually being observed, so its an ongoing issue.

    That said, yes they can run for any office, including positions in their tribal government.

11. Yes, Native Americans have been US citizens since 1924.

12. The easiest way to understand how reservations work is to think of them as states. They’re sovereign in the sense that they can do almost everything states can. Native Americans born on reservations can run for president. The part where it gets weird is that reservations don’t get electoral votes like states/DC do, nor do they have their own congressional representation. For the purpose of voting for federal officials, reservations are considered a part of the state(s) they’re surrounded by.

13. Sure.